Legacy - By Denise Tompkins
Prologue
I once heard someone say it’s a good thing the world sucks or we’d all fall off. At the time, I laughed. Now I’m thinking of having it tattooed on my ass. Everything has changed for me in the last eleven months, and I’m so emotionally tired in the wake of the changes that I’m nearly dangerous to myself and others. My parents were killed in a train derailment. I had been an only child—now I’m an orphan. I no longer believe in a happily-ever-after that will last. Too many things, important and irreplaceable things, can be taken from you in the blink of an eye. In a moment of rash behavior I sold everything I owned, quit my stable, predictable job as a copy editor and decided to go to the United Kingdom for a solid month to try and rebalance my life. Total bug nut behavior if there ever was such a thing.
There’s a strong pull to be there, in England. I don’t understand it. It may have something to do with my dreams, dreams that are dark and disturbing. If nighttime is my enemy, sleep is my nemesis. There is a need to stand and commune with the past at the stone circle I see when I fall victim to sleep. There are aerial shadows that make me duck and run, skittering like a mouse from cover to cover, knowing I’m chased by something beloved yet deadly. There is something separate that moves among the forests of my mind like mist, never materializing enough to identify itself as ally or enemy. But it follows me, and in my dreams I shift away from it instinctively. Then there are the bodies. They weep the tears of the dead, holding out their hands to me in pleading supplication. They beg silently, mouths gaping, for help. I wake up screaming, terrified and full of a longing for the smell of London fog and the feel of Highland heather under my feet… Things I’ve never known before, but that feel as familiar to me as breathing.
All I know for sure is that right now I need to be somewhere, anywhere, but here.